The next meeting of the Book Club will take place at The Park on August 30, beginning at 6:30PM. The book that will be discussed is Stieg Larsson's THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO.
There was, in fact, a meeting at The Park last night; the book under discussion was THE CHINESE SULTANATE: ISLAM, ETHNICITY, AND THE PANTHAY REBELLION IN SOUTHWEST CHINA, 1856-1873, by David G. Atwill, which covered a period of Yunnan history in which millions were killed and offers a well-researched analysis of the social and historical causes of this very major conflict that does not simply write it off as 'Muslim rebellion'. The Panthay Rebellion has been overshadowed and relatively little known thanks to the even greater slaughter of the Taiping Rebellion in eastern China that was going on at roughly the same time. Implications of the train of causation of the Panthay Rebellion might possibly be applied to certain events that are occurring or have occurred in recent years in China.
Xuning Temple, Kunming's mountaintop sanctuary
发布者@JanJal: Not sure what the point of volunteering to help on this would be - they've got the money and the workers will probably want to get paid.
Xuning Temple, Kunming's mountaintop sanctuary
发布者@Ocean: I've never seen any indication that it's unfriendly. Many things concerning ritual in china are not matters of belief/hypocrisy, but a matter of proper and acceptable practice - you can do it or not, nobody will be bothered.
Update: Officials fired after school stampede kills six
发布者could be, JanJal, but a lot of very rich people make a point of making a profit out of the situation of very poor people too - and they've got the money to do it efficiently.
Update: Officials fired after school stampede kills six
发布者@Jan Jal: I agree that the flip side of the Chinese identification with the family often means a certain relative lack of regard for those who are not of the family. I don't know that this has anything to do with poverty. As for putting one's own survival and benefit first, that sounds like most people. But I'm not sure the school tragedy can be reduced to this.
Update: Officials fired after school stampede kills six
发布者@Mike: 'China' didn't do this - 'China' doesn't have or not have respect for others - and who are the 'others' that you might be referring to, and what do they have to do with this tragedy?.